Can human Vision be made infinitely sharp, at least in theory?

Question

When you go to the optometrist they test your reading by flicking you through many different lenses. Of course there are a finite number of lenses in their possession, so they can only correct your vision to some precision. if one could in principle make custom lenses precisely for a person’s eye, could one theoretically have perfect vision
? and how far would you be able to resolve images on a clear day?

In: 3

Answer 1

> if one could in principle make custom lenses precisely for a person’s eye

They already do. There’s a lot of parameters the optometrist is fiddling with and often it’s not just a matter of swapping in a different focus lens. For example my new glasses have the same value lenses as before but at a slightly different angle and it’s noticeably better.

> and how far would you be able to resolve images on a clear day?

At a clear *night*, couple million kilometers. You can see the moon pretty well, yes?

The limit isn’t distance, it’s angular resolution. Each receptor in your eye receives light from an expanding cone-ish shape that covers about 0.02 degrees vertically and horizontally. With 1x magnification (natural vision), that’s the limit of what you can see – if the object only covers one of those cones at the distance it is, you see a dot, if it fals into more of the cones you get to see a tiny blurry shape etc.